Robinhood Crisis Reveals Hidden Costs in Zero-Fee Trading Model

For all its benefits, the “democratization” of the stock market can quickly devolve into recklessness. Turns out, no-fee stock trades can exact a very high price after all. Not only for the retail traders sitting on deep losses speculating on meme stocks, or for Robinhood, which faces recriminations for “gamifying” the frenzy that spun out of control and was forced to scramble for billions in fresh cash, but also for the stock market itself, which must reckon with the wild...

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Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce join forces to build a COVID-19 vaccination app

If you're one of the lucky 10.8 million who have received the COVID-19 vaccine (that's roughly one in every 30 Americans), then all you have to show for it right now is a piece of paper, but that may soon change. A coalition of tech companies and health organizations announced Thursday that they are working on the development of an app that will enable people to share their immunization status, reports the New York Times. The companies, including Salesforce, Oracle,...

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Chinese billionaire Jack Ma suspected missing

Ant Group founder Jack Ma has reportedly not been seen in public for months. 
Speculation has swirled around Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s whereabouts after reports surfaced that the high-profile businessman has not made a public appearance in more than two months. The Alibaba founder also failed to appear as scheduled in the final episode of his own talent show, Africa’s Business Heroes, which gives budding African entrepreneurs...

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San Francisco board rebukes naming hospital for Facebook CEO

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Supervisors in San Francisco overwhelmingly approved a resolution Tuesday condemning the naming of the city's public hospital for Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, in 2015 after the couple gave $75 million toward a new acute care and trauma center. The nonbinding resolution does not have the force of law and does not require the hospital to do anything. The hospital was the first in San Francisco to administer vaccines protecting against the...

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EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

Big tech firms face yearly checks on how they are tackling illegal and harmful content under new rules unveiled by the European Commission.
Fresh restrictions are also planned to govern their use of customers' data, and to prevent the firms ranking their own services above competitors' in search results and app stores.
The measures are intended to overhaul how the EU regulates digital...

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U.S. and States Say Facebook Illegally Crushed Competition

Regulators are accusing the company of buying up rising rivals to cement its dominance over social media.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission and more than 40 states accused Facebook on Wednesday of buying up its rivals to illegally squash competition, and they called for the deals to be unwound, escalating regulators’ battle against the biggest tech companies in a way that could remake the social media industry.

Federal and state regulators of both parties, who have investigated...

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DoorDash races higher in IPO. What four market analysts see ahead

DoorDash shares are dashing higher on the company’s first official trading day. The food delivery giant went public to huge fanfare on Wednesday, with its stock surging nearly 86% to close at $189.51 per share.
“Right now, the time is really to invest,” DoorDash CEO Tony Xu told CNBC in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. “We’re playing in one of the biggest yet still most underpenetrated categories in the world.” Here’s what four market analysts, including CNBC’s Jim Cramer, said about DoorDash’s...

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Online sales reach $10.8 billion on Cyber Monday, the biggest U.S. e-commerce day ever, Adobe says

Holiday shoppers went online Monday and spent $10.8 billion, setting a record for the largest U.S. internet shopping day ever, according to Adobe Analytics data. Cyber Monday spending rose 15.1% year over year, according to Adobe, which analyzes website transactions from 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers. That came in short of Adobe’s original forecast of $12.7 billion. The firm had been revising its Cyber Monday estimate downward in recent days.
Adobe cut its online sales forecast...

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Salesforce deal to buy Slack expected to be announced Tuesday after market close

The deal is expected to be about half cash and half stock, the sources said, and will price Slack at a premium. Salesforce is set to report quarterly earnings on Tuesday. Slack’s market cap was more than $24 billion as of Monday morning. Shares of Slack rose about 4% Monday on the news. Salesforce shares were down more than 3%. Talks between the two companies were first reported last week by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by CNBC, sending...

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What’s Next for Section 230? A Roundup of Proposals

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has long provided internet platforms like Twitter and Facebook with immunity from claims based on third-party content that appears on their platforms. The statute, codified at 47 U.S.C. § 230, forces individuals unhappy with third-party content to sue the party directly responsible for such content—that is, the user who posted it. This immunity has fostered the free flow of ideas on...

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